Sunday, November 25, 2012

I've been in a reading rut lately. I just could not get in to our latest book club choice - Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler - even though it was my pick. I got to about page 30 before giving up completely. Granted, I wasn't the only one: only one of the girls read the whole thing, and we've decided to watch the movie at our next meeting instead (on the advice of the one girl who read the book and has seen the movie).

After easily reaching and surpassing my reading goal last year (10 books) I thought 20 would be a piece of cake this year. After all, I was still at home for the first half of last year with Evan - this year I would much more free time! But, either I wasn't as motivated to read, just didn't pick enough books that were that riveting, or didn't have as much free time as I thought, because I'm only at 13 books with a little over a month to go in 2012.

Anyway, to get my reading mojo back, I ordered Baby Proof by Emily Giffin for my Kindle. The easiest way to get back into something is to start nice, light, fun, and easy, right? I was right - I tore through the book in 3 days.

Typical of Giffin books, it was a fun story with love angst, wrong decisions, misunderstandings, heart warming moments, and - of course - a perfect ending. It was exactly what I needed and I just might eat up another chic-lit book to keep things going.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

I love that Evan is talking more and more, and his vocabulary and pronunciation are getting better by the day. Before he's talking like one of us, I just wanted to jot down some Evanisms that make this time so cute:

Pibbow = Pillow

Armpit = Elephant

Peas = Please

Moke = Milk

Shub up = shut up (yes, he says this, but only when the cats meow)

Geen = Green (this is probably a common one, but cute nonetheless)

He also has some words & phrases that are totally our influence:

G bar = granola bar

PB, PB&J = peanut butter, peanut butter and jam

Headbutt (along with action) - thanks to DH for this!

Gampa? - said every time our computer makes iChat like noises (we often iChat with my parents)

Fuff = cat (that's mine from when I was a kid)

Fistbump, Boom! ("boom" after the fistbump is complete)

Games he likes to play:

Boom = a game we play in the bathtub where we bump two bath toys together over and over (and over and over) again.

Ramp = daddy makes a ramp out of cushions and books for his cars and trains. Sometimes there are tunnel requests as well.

Fote (fort) = cushion forts, of course!

Race = he squats down, points to the floor/ground next to him, and says "race" until one of us squats beside him. The race is done when he squats down and says "race" again.

Jumping Bean = he says this over and over as he jumps up and down on whatever furniture he's standing on and/or jumps onto us.

I hope to keep track of the funny and interesting things he says and does more, because these are the things that make him his own little person and I want to remember it all when he's older

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Last weekend we took Evan to the annual Santa Claus parade (yes, on the 10th of November - crazy, right?). As we sat our butts on the cold cement and looked around at the other families with their blankets, chairs, thermoses filled with hot chocolate, games (for the hour long wait before the parade started), and even full-size pizzas, we realized we were grossly under-prepared.

As we walked back to the car, stiff from sitting in the cold on even colder cement, we swore we would write a list of what we needed to do/bring next year to make the parade a bit more enjoyable.

- At least two blankets - one to sit on, another to cover us up

- A hot beverage, perhaps with an added "bonus" for the adults

- Snacks - pizza's a bit extreme, but having some granola bars on hand couldn't hurt

- Diversions for Evan - we can't escape the need to get to the parade early in order to get a good spot. We should bring something to occupy him besides running around like a madman across the road and back.
- Wearing extra layers of clothing and bringing extra gloves/hats/scarves - even though the weather seems warm, sitting still for 2-3 hours means being colder than one would think!

Any other tips?

Regardless, we still had a great time at the parade this year! Evan wore himself out running around for the first hour that he sat nice and still during the parade. We particularly enjoyed the steel drum band and Santa of course!

Friday, November 9, 2012

I hate going backwards. If I miss a turn while driving, I won't turn around - I'll
take the next one. I hate making corrections to things that I thought
were "finalized". I would rather leave things the way they are, even if they're not perfect, just because I hate redoing work.

I don't really know where this comes from - is it from laziness (not wanting to repeat work), a control thing (it's fine the way it is because I did it), or am I just laid back and don't get worried about the small stuff?

My guess is that it's situation-dependent, and sometimes it's a strength (knowing when things are "good enough" and not wasting time on making them perfect) and other times it's a weakness (things could be better with just a little bit of effort).

Lately, I find that it's been cropping up more on the negative side of things, and it seems that I don't pay attention to detail, or that I half-ass things, or something.

Like introversion, this is a trait of mine that I've become more aware of lately. Unlike introversion, I'm not sure if this is something I should accept about myself, or if it's something I need to work on.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Life seems to be full of unbloggables right now, so I'm a bit at a loss for what to write about lately.

One fun thing is we decided to get a gas fireplace installed this fall! The ancient wood-burning one was taken out last week, we chose new tile for the hearth and surround, DH took out the old hearth tile, and he installed the new tile. Next Monday, the new fireplace gets installed, then we put up the new surround tile. I'll post before/after photos when we're done.